“You didn’t know? Apparently in certain legal circles the new term for fifty million pounds is ‘a Samantha.’ Take it from me, I was not amused.”
“Mum, I’m so sorry—”
“At least the story has been contained within the legal world. I’ve spoken to Carter Spink and they assure me that it won’t be going further. You should be grateful for that.”
“I … I suppose so …”
“Where are you?” she cuts across my faltering words. “Where are you right now?”
I’m standing in a larder, surrounded by packets of cereal.
“I’m … at someone’s house. Out of London.”
“And what are your plans?”
“I don’t know.” I rub my face. “I need to … get myself together. Find a job.”
“A job,” she says scathingly. “You think any top law firm is going to touch you now?”
I flinch at her tone. “I … I don’t know. Mum, I’ve only just heard about being fired. I can’t just—”
“You can. Thankfully, I have acted for you.”
She’s acted for me?
“What do you—”
“I’ve called in all my favors. It wasn’t an easy job. But the senior partner at Fortescues will see you tomorrow at ten.”
I’m almost too stupefied to reply. “You’ve … organized me a job interview?”
“Assuming all goes well, you will enter at senior associate level.” Her voice is crisp. “You’re being given this chance as a personal favor to me. As you can imagine, there are … reservations. So if you want to progress, Samantha, you are going to have to perform. You’re going to have to give this job every hour you have.”
“Right.” I shut my eyes, my thoughts whirling. I have a job interview. A fresh start. It’s the solution to my nightmare.
Why don’t I feel more relieved?
“You will have to give more than you did at Carter Spink,” Mum continues in my ear. “No slacking. No complacency. You will have to prove yourself doubly. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I say automatically.
More hours. More work. More late nights.
It’s almost as if I can feel the concrete blocks being loaded onto me again. More and more of them. Heavier and heavier.
“I mean … no,” I hear myself saying. “No. It’s too much. I … don’t want that now. I need some time.”
The words come out of my mouth all by themselves. I wasn’t planning them; I’ve never even thought them before. But now that they’re out in the air they somehow feel … true.
“I’m sorry?” Mum’s voice is sharp. “Samantha, what on earth are you saying?”
“I don’t know.” I’m kneading my forehead, trying to make sense of my own confusion. “I was thinking … I could take a break, maybe.”
“A break would finish your legal career.” Her voice snaps dismissively. “Finish it.”
“I could … do something else.”
“You wouldn’t last more than two minutes in anything else!” She sounds affronted. “Samantha, you’re a lawyer. You’ve been trained as a lawyer.”
“There are other things in the world than being a lawyer!” I cry, rattled.
There’s an ominous silence. I can’t believe I’m standing up to her. I don’t think I’ve ever challenged my mother in my life. I feel shaky as I grip the phone. But at the same time, I know I can’t do what she wants.
“Samantha, if you’re having some kind of breakdown like your brother—”
“I’m not having a breakdown!” My voice rises in distress. “I never asked you to find me another job. I don’t know what I want. I need a bit of time … to … to think …”
“You will be at that job interview, Samantha.” Mum’s voice is like a whip. “You will be there tomorrow at ten o’clock.”
“I won’t!”
“Tell me where you are! I’m sending a car straightaway.”
“No! Leave me alone.”
I switch off my phone, come out of the larder, and almost savagely throw it down onto the table. She’s my mother. And she didn’t express one word of sympathy. Not one jot of kindness. My face is burning and tears are pressing hotly at the back of my eyes. The phone starts vibrating angrily on the table, but I ignore it. I’m not going to answer it. I’m not going to talk to anyone. I’m going to have a drink. And then I’m going to cook this bloody dinner.
I slosh some white wine into a glass and take several gulps. Then I address myself to the pile of raw ingredients waiting on the table.
I can cook. I can cook this stuff. Even if everything else in my life is in ruins, I can do this. I have a brain, I can work it out.
Without delay I rip the plastic coverings off the lamb. This can go in the oven. In some kind of dish. Simple. And the chickpeas can go in there too. Then I’ll mash them and that will make the hummus.
I open a cupboard and pull out a whole load of gleaming baking dishes and trays. I select a baking tray and scatter the chickpeas onto it. Some bounce onto the floor, but I don’t care. I grab a bottle of oil from the counter and drizzle it over the top. Already I’m feeling like a cook.
I shove the tray into the oven and turn it on full blast. Then I put the lamb in an oval dish and shove that in too.
So far so good. Now all I need to do is leaf through all Trish’s recipe books and find instructions for seared foie gras with an apricot glaze.
OK. I didn’t find a single recipe for seared foie gras with an apricot glaze. I found apricot and raspberry flan, turkey with chestnut and apricot stuffing, and almond pithivier with apricot filling and Prosecco sabayon.
I stare at the page blindly. I have just turned down what may be my only opportunity to start over. I’m a lawyer. That’s what I am. What else am I going to do? What’s happened to me?
Oh, God. Why is smoke coming out of the oven?
By seven o’clock I’m still cooking.
At least I think that’s what I’m doing. Both ovens are roaring with heat. Pots are bubbling on the hob. The electric whisk is whirring busily. I’ve burned my right hand twice taking things out of the oven. Eight recipe books are open around the kitchen, one drenched with spilled oil and another with egg yolk. I’m puce in the face, sweating hard, and trying every so often to run my hand under cold water.
I’ve been going for three hours. And I haven’t yet made anything that could actually be eaten. So far I’ve discarded a collapsed chocolate soufflé, two pans of burned onions, and a saucepan of congealed apricots that made me feel sick just to look at them.
I can’t work out what’s going wrong. I haven’t got time to work out what’s going wrong. There’s no scope for analysis. Every time there’s a disaster I just dump it and start again, quickly thawing food from the freezer, changing tack, trying to cobble something together.
The Geigers meanwhile are drinking sherry in the drawing room. They think everything is going splendidly. Trish tried to come into the kitchen about half an hour ago, but I managed to head her off.
In less than an hour she and Eddie are going to be sitting down at the table expecting a gourmet meal. Shaking out their napkins with anticipation, pouring out their mineral water and wine.
A kind of frenzied hysteria has come over me. I know I cannot do this, but somehow I can’t give up either. I keep thinking a miracle will happen. I’ll pull it all together. I’ll manage it somehow—
Oh, God, the gravy’s bubbling over.
I shove the oven door shut, grab a spoon, and start stirring it. It looks like revolting lumpy brown water. Frantically I start searching in the cupboards for something to chuck in. Flour. Cornstarch. Something like that. This’ll do. I grab a small pot and shake in vigorous amounts of the white powder, then wipe the sweat off my brow. OK. What now?
Suddenly I remember the egg whites, still whisking up in their bowl. I grab the recipe book, running my finger down the page. I changed the dessert course to pavlova after I chanced upon the line in a recipe book:
Meringues are so easy to make.
So far so good. What next? Form the stiff meringue mixture into a large circle on your baking parchment.
I peer at my bowl. Stiff meringue mixture? Mine’s liquid.
It has to be right, I tell myself feverishly. It has to be. I followed the instructions. Maybe it’s thicker than it looks. Maybe once I start pouring it out, it’ll stiffen up by some weird culinary law of physics.
Slowly I start to pour it onto the tray. It doesn’t stiffen up. It spreads in a white oozing lake and starts dripping off the tray onto the floor.
Something tells me this is not going to make white chocolate pavlova for eight.
A splodge lands on my foot and I give a frustrated cry, near tears. Why didn’t it work? I followed the sodding recipe and everything. A pent-up rage is rising inside me: rage at myself, at my defective crappy egg whites, at cookery books, at cooks, at food … and most of all at whoever wrote that meringues were so easy to make.
“They’re not!” I hear myself yelling. “They’re bloody not!” I hurl the book across the kitchen, where it smashes against the kitchen door.
“What the hell—” a male voice exclaims in surprise.
The door flies open and Nathaniel is standing there, a rucksack hefted over his shoulder; he looks like he’s on his way home. “Is everything OK?”
“It’s fine,” I say, rattled. “Everything’s fine. Thank you. Thank you so much.” I make a dismissive motion with my hand, but he doesn’t move.
“I heard you were cooking a gourmet dinner tonight,” he says slowly, surveying the mess.
“Yes. That’s right. I’m just in the … most complex stage of the … um …” I glance down at the hob and give an involuntary scream. “Fuck! The gravy!”
I don’t know what’s happened. Brown bubbles are expanding out of my gravy saucepan, all over the cooker, and down the sides on the floor. It looks like the porringer in the story of the magic pot that wouldn’t stop making porridge.
“Get it off the heat, for God’s sake!” exclaims Nathaniel, throwing his rucksack aside. He snatches up the pan and moves it to the counter. “What on earth is in that?”
“Nothing!” I say. “Just the usual ingredients …”
Nathaniel has noticed the little pot on the counter. He grabs it and takes a pinch between his fingers. “Baking soda? You put baking soda in gravy? Is that what they taught you at—” He breaks off and sniffs the air. “Hang on. Is something burning?”
I watch helplessly as he opens the bottom oven, grabs an oven glove with a practiced air, and hauls out a baking tray covered in what look like tiny black bullets.
Oh, no. My chickpeas.
“What are these supposed to be?” he says incredulously. “Rabbit droppings?”
“They’re chickpeas,” I retort. My cheeks are flaming but I lift my chin, trying to regain some kind of dignity. “I drizzled them in olive oil and put them in the oven so they could … melt.”
Nathaniel stares at me. “Melt?”
“Soften,” I amend hurriedly.
Nathaniel puts down the tray and folds his arms. “Do you know anything about cooking?”
Before I can answer, there’s the most almighty BANG from the microwave.
“Oh, my God!” I shriek in terror. “Oh, my God! What was that?” Nathaniel is peering through the glass door.
“What the hell was in there?” he demands. “Something’s exploded.”
My mind races frantically. What on earth did I put in the microwave? It’s all a blur.
“The eggs!” I suddenly remember. “I was hard-boiling the eggs for the canapés.”
“In a microwave?” he expostulates.
“To save time!” I practically yell back. “I was being efficient!”
Nathaniel yanks the plug of the microwave from the wall socket and turns round to face me, his face working with disbelief. “You know bugger all about cooking! You’re not a housekeeper. I don’t know what the hell you’re up to—”
“I’m not up to anything!” I reply, in shock.
“The Geigers are good people.” He faces me square on. “I won’t have them exploited.”
Oh, God. What does he think? That I’m some kind of confidence trickster?
“Look … please.” I rub my sweaty face. “I’m not trying to rip anyone off. OK, I can’t cook. But I ended up here because of … a misunderstanding.”
“What kind of misunderstanding?”
I sink down onto a chair and massage my aching lower back. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was. “I was running away from … something. I needed a place to stay for the night. I stopped here for some water and directions to a hotel and the Geigers assumed I was a housekeeper. And then this morning I felt terrible. I thought I’d do the job for the morning. But I’m not planning to stay. And I won’t take any money from them, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Nathaniel is leaning against the counter, his arms folded. His wary frown has eased a little. He reaches into his rucksack and takes out a bottle of beer. He offers it to me and I shake my head.
“What were you running from?” he says, cracking the bottle open.
I feel a painful wrench inside. I cannot face telling the whole dreadful story.
“It was … a situation.” I look down.
He takes a drink of beer. “A bad relationship?”
For a moment I’m silenced. I think back over all my years at Carter Spink. All the hours I gave them, everything I sacrificed. Finished in a three-minute phone call.
“Yes,” I say slowly. “A bad relationship.”
“How long were you in it?”
“Seven years.” To my horror I can feel tears seeping out of the corners of my eyes. I have no idea where they came from. “I’m sorry,” I gulp. “It’s been quite a stressful day.”
Nathaniel tears off a piece of kitchen towel from the wall-mounted roll behind him and hands it to me. “If it was a bad relationship, you’re well out of it,” he says in calm tones. “No point staying. No point looking back.”
“You’re right.” I wipe my eyes. “Yes. I just have to decide what to do with my life. I can’t stay here.” I reach for the bottle of Cointreau, which was supposed to go in the chocolate-orange soufflé, pour some into a handy eggcup, and take a gulp.
“The Geigers are good employers,” says Nathaniel with a tiny shrug. “You could do worse.”
“Yeah.” I raise a half smile. “Unfortunately, I can’t cook.”
He puts his bottle of beer down and wipes his mouth. His hands look scrubbed clean, but I can still see the traces of earth ingrained around his nails, in the seams of his weather-beaten skin.
“I could speak to my mum. She can cook. She could teach you the basics.”
I look at him in astonishment, almost laughing. “You think I should stay? I thought I was supposed to be a confidence trickster.” I shake my head, wincing at the taste of the Cointreau. “I have to go.”
“Shame.” He shrugs. “It would have been nice to have someone around who speaks English. And makes such great sandwiches,” he adds, totally deadpan.
I can’t help smiling back. “Caterers.”
“Ah. I wondered.”
A faint rapping at the door makes us both look up.
“Samantha?” Trish’s voice outside is hushed and urgent. “Can you hear me?”
“Er … yes?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t come in. I don’t want to disturb anything! You’re probably at a very crucial stage.”
“Kind of …”
I catch Nathaniel’s eye and a sudden wave of hysteria rises through me.
“I just wanted to ask,” Trish’s voice continues, “if you will be serving any kind of sorbet between the courses?”
I look at Nathaniel. His shoulders are shaking with silent laughter. I can’t stop a tiny snort escaping. I clamp my hand over my mouth, trying to get control of myself.
“Samantha?”
“Er …
no,” I manage at last. “There won’t be any sorbet.”
Nathaniel has picked up one of my pans of burned onions. He mimes taking a spoonful and eating it. Yummy, he mouths.
“Well! See you later!”
Trish tip-taps away and I collapse into helpless laughter. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. My ribs hurt; I’m coughing; I almost feel like I’ll be sick.
At last I wipe my eyes and blow my runny nose on the kitchen towel. Nathaniel’s stopped laughing too and is looking around the bombshelled kitchen.
“Seriously,” he says. “What are you going to do about this? They’re expecting a fancy dinner.”
“I know. I know they are. I’ll just have to … think of something.”
There’s silence in the kitchen. Nathaniel is curiously eyeing the white splodges of meringue on the floor. I cast my mind back to all the times I’ve had to go into a room at Carter Spink and bluff my way out of a tricky spot. There has to be a way.
“OK.” I take a deep breath and push back my damp hair. “I’m going to rescue the situation.”
“You’re going to rescue the situation?” He looks skeptical.
“In fact, I think this might solve everyone’s problems.” I get to my feet and start busily sweeping packets into the bin. “First I need to clear up the kitchen a bit.…”
“I’ll help.” Nathaniel stands up. “This I have to see.”
Companionably, we empty pans and pots and packets into the bin. I scrub all the smeared surfaces while Nathaniel mops up the meringue.
“How long have you worked here?” I ask as he rinses out the mop in the sink.
“Three years. I worked for the people who lived here before the Geigers, the Ellises. Then Trish and Eddie moved in two years ago and kept me on.”
I digest this. “Why did the Ellises move? It’s such a beautiful house.”
“The Geigers made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.” Nathaniel’s mouth is twitching with … amusement?
“What?” I say, intrigued. “What happened?”
“Well …” He puts the mop down. “It was fairly comical. The house was used as a location in a BBC period drama, all set in the Cotswolds. Two weeks after it was aired, Trish and Eddie arrived on the doorstep waving a check. They’d seen it on television, decided they wanted it, and tracked it down.”